Some thoughts on Obama's evolving image.



I think a lot of people make the mistake of buying into this image of Obama, heavily promoted by his opponents, that he's all fluffy bunnies and sweetness and light. They completely underestimate the man's cunning, tenacity and drive. He is a social worker, but he's also a lawyer. He's a "new politician", but he's also a professor at the University of Chicago, - an institution notoriously unkind to the slow and the witless.

Barack knows exactly what he is doing. When he was campaigning against Hillary, he positioned himself in a way that made use of her faults and his own positive attributes to his best advantage: kindness, unwillingness to be baited, inspiring people, being new and fresh and all-around shiny - everything she was not. But watch what happens once NC gives him the decisive push to the nomination.

a) He begins ignoring her on the campaign trail - as if there is no longer any point in even addressing her. Despite that, he still speaks of her with respect and plays it as though she were still a contender. She isn't, and he knows it.

b) The day after his decisive victory in North Carolina, Obama drops by Capitol Hill, ostensibly to visit with colleagues but really for a victory lap - to let everyone see him walk the hallways, looking fit and energetic and surrounded by guards. He chats amiably with the fawning press, shakes many hands, and says hi to various visitors, greeting especially warmly a group from Schaumberg, Illinois. No wonder that after such an onslaught of charm and pure cool, the Congressional superdelegates started tripping over themselves to endorse him: he let it be subtly known to everyone that he is THEIR NEW BOSS. It was beautiful, the way he played it.

c) He gives Wolf Blitzer a very statesmanly interview, one of his best to date, and tears into McCain for his comment that Hamas would welcome Obama as President, whereas McCain would be their worst nightmare. Obama replies, in a grave and sad voice, that McCain appeared to be "losing his bearings." Contextually, he means that McCain was losing his moral way and surrendering to impulses to play by nasty GOP rules. However, the phrase "losing his bearings" sends McCain's team reeling and provokes them into issuing a memo (!) where they attack Obama for making unfunny jokes about McCain's age!

Do you "see what he did there"? Not only did Obama con the McCain team into raising the question of McCain's age themselves, but he also managed to throw doubts on McCain's army-tough-guy credentials: what sort of a maverick army man would not know that the phrase "losing one's bearings" refers to straying off course? It was beautiful.

So here is my conclusion. There was and remains a lot of not entirely empty noise about Obama intentionally playing a pseudo-Messianic figure to the gullible crowds. Now, I don't credit him with that much hypocrisy and pride, but I don't for a *second* think that this massive adorng movement around him just happened - that he stumbled into it naively. No: he positioned himself to contrast favorably with the shrill shrew Hillary, who always seemed to look out only for number one. But you know what, guys? I think we're going to see a different Obama from now on. Now that Hillary is out of the picture, he will start emphasising the things that set him apart favorably from John McCain: his youth (already he's letting himself be photographed in jeans and stories are leaked that he plays Taboo with the press corps on long flights), his knowledge of foreign affairs and economics, and, more than anything else, his sharp wit.

To put it very bluntly, Obama is going to subtly morph from Lord Jesus into Lord Vetinari.

I. Can't. WAIT!